


trod into the mire of their blood

by Zimraphel



Series: tolkien ficlets [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Maglor contemplates (cultural) genocide, Uldor's No Good Very Bad Day, tw slurs against the Secondborn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimraphel/pseuds/Zimraphel
Summary: Uldor is killed by Maglor (and his horse).-Haveyouever fantasised about what it would be like to be killed by an enraged Noldorin warlord? Now you can! (or not: I have never in my life written a battle scene before). I just wanted to see if I could write one involving Maglor..drabble experiment.
Series: tolkien ficlets [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042965
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	trod into the mire of their blood

Even in the midst of battle his heart still finds a way to speed up at the sight.

The rider approaches at full speed, his horse’s flanks gleaming darkly with sweat or blood; perhaps both. Even through the din a hundred men struggling for breath he hears the crush and cry of men falling beneath _these_ reddened hooves, the gush and hewing of bone and sinew by _this_ arm, over and over, nearer and nearer. And still the rider approaches. His sons stand around him still, valiant not for long. He parries a blow on instinct, unseeing now, yet unable to lift his gaze to the face he knows beholds his own seeing—what exactly?

The answer to that question is, perhaps, the reason why it has come to this; though somehow, he’d never quite believed it would come to _this_ , exactly. But then Men were always eager to grasp for _amdir_ , and ever slow to _estel_. Or so they say; which is quite often not, exactly, what they mean.

It is perhaps so that after long practicing the art of careful omission and emphasis simply saying yes when no was closer to the truth would sound almost too simple to distrust, _childish_ \--

The horse is quite possibly older than he is. It has that fell Valinorean look.

He stumbles back, still not looking at the rider.

For a while, it seems like maybe he might retreat far enough to make reaching him a fool’s choice, following him into the ranks of the Enemy. He allows something like hope, foolish hope, to catch in his heart, despite the blood pooling in the mud between them. A great horn sounds somewhere in the distance, and he thinks that maybe—

But the great horse is upon him now, and a blow to his chest sends him slipping in mud already darkened by the blood of many men. Where are his—but no, he cannot bear to think of it. The ground is cold and wet with it, already seeping through his clothes. And someone is singing.

And someone is hewing at his legs, and dragging at his arms, and he thinks the pain (which is all-consuming) should be worse but the singing is in his ear, inescapable, and somehow, he thinks, worse; intimate, insurmountable vision --withdrawing every protection of the Eldar from his lands, his villages, his sons (his sons), his son’s wives, even their sheep, their cows and at last—unspooling their very memory, rewriting, grinding into his bones, promising silence with all the authority of Song, aftercomer, sickly, accursed-- a name only remembered in a language that mocked it, choking in the bloodied mud beneath the blaze of elder stars that for all their annihilation demand some sort of answer.  
  
  
Still he does not raise his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Uldor means ' ugly lord' in Sindarin; I'm sure it didn't in his own language, if it was indeed his name at all. I'm just going to guess that it wasn't. Ugly lord son of ugly beard does have a ring to it I suppose.


End file.
